


The Distance Between

by stargatefan_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-10-07 02:37:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10350546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargatefan_archivist/pseuds/stargatefan_archivist
Summary: Spoilers: "Solitudes"; and very minor, barely noticeable ones for "CrystalSkull", "Touchstone", "A Matter of Time", "TBFtGoG", "Fire and Water"Summary: Another wormhole anomaly, and Daniel gets left behind...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Yuma, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Stargatefan.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Stargatefan.com). To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [StargateFan Archive Collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/StargateFan_Archive_Collection).

Stargate SG-1 | Gen Fanfiction | The Distance Between

##  The Distance Between 

##### Written by Travelling One   
Comments? Write to us at [travelling_one@yahoo.ca](mailto:travelling_one@yahoo.ca)

 

****

Day 1, 0930 hours

The vortex splashed open as Jack watched, then quickly settled into the hazy reflection of its water-like event horizon. A simple follow-up mission for the SG1 team to Amdhar-bahar, a pleasant outing to a world of lovely villages and nice people. SG3 had made contact with this world two weeks earlier, and had found the natives to be curious, engaging, and downright hospitable. They had been glad to have unexpected visitors, or so it seemed. And they had good naquadah mining prospects, if they would be willing to sign an agreement. The problem was, they didn’t speak English, more of what sounded from the tapes to be a derivative of ancient Greek. A cinch for Dr. Jackson, hopefully.

"Dr. Jackson," General Hammond called as the team strode up the ramp, "a moment, please."

Daniel stopped, as did Jack. "Go ahead, Jack. I’ll be there in a minute."

As Teal’c, Sam, and Jack stepped through the wormhole, the General handed Daniel a slightly larger than palm-sized video camera. "Take this, Dr. Jackson. It’s our newest acquisition, hot off the design table. Apparently they’ve been working on some 3D type functions and want it tested out. Have a look at it, see what you can do with it."

Daniel looked at the camera’s mechanisms, deciding it didn’t look too difficult to operate. "3D, huh? In Jack’s words - cool." He placed the camera carefully into his pack and stepped through the wormhole........

...right into two feet of water. 

\--------------------

The trio had just stepped out of the wormhole into a bright sunshiny day, the perfect surroundings and temperature for a two-mile hike to the village.

"Ah, birds chirping, cool breezes blowing, great day for a picnic. Lay down the tablecloth Teal’c, get out the lemonade, ..."

"It does sort of remind me of outings with my cousins," Sam smiled in retort. "Judy - she was just a bit older than me - used to take me on short hikes while everyone else was snoozing on the blankets, and show me plants she’d been learning about in school..."

The deactivation of the wormhole caused the three team members to sharply turn and face the direction of the puzzling phenomenon.

"......so........." O’Neill paused. ".......... Where’s Daniel?"

For a moment there was no response.

"Carter...????"

"Uh... I have no idea, sir. Maybe they kept him back at the base for something? The wormhole would only have been closed down at their end, sir,..... if there was still a traveller..."

"Okay, dial us home, Major. Let’s find out what’s going on."

Major Carter went over to the DHD and began to dial in Earth’s address. O’Neill and Teal’c stood together, surmising on what might have kept Daniel back. 

"Colonel!"

Jack walked over to the DHD. "Problem, Major?"

"Uh, yes, sir." Sam looked at him with worried eyes. "I can’t seem to establish a connection."

As Sam and Jack looked at each other for an uncomprehending moment, O’Neill spoke. "Okay, they’re probably trying to dial up again, to send Daniel through. They must’ve had to shut it down for a moment. No problem. We’ll just wait and see."

It was about ten minutes later when Jack finally stopped his pacing. "Okay folks, Daniel’s not coming through and no one’s sending a message to tell us why. Let’s try again."

This time the dial-up worked, and the event horizon shot open.

\-------------------

The three members of SG1 stepped through the wormhole into the gateroom, to the concerned looks of attending SGC crew. 

"What happened, Colonel? You’ve been gone less than fifteen minutes." The general eyed them carefully. _Deja vu_...their fourth member was not with them. For the third time in his memory, Hammond asked the question, "And where is Doctor Jackson?"

The trio stopped in their tracks, the puzzled looks on their faces changing to fear. 

"We...we thought he was still here, sir." _Oh no, don’t let this be happening again..._

"Daniel never came through the gate, General. It shut down about a minute after we got there."

General Hammond took in what they were saying, but comprehension was lacking. "Dr. Jackson went through the gate no more than two or three minutes after you did, SG1... alright people, let’s find out what’s going on. We have a man out there somewhere, let’s find him."

\--------------------

The horror Daniel felt as he stared frozenly at his surroundings overpowered the realization itself that he was in water up to his thighs. For as far as the eye could see, in every direction, horizon to horizon...nothing but water. Still water, unmoving, like an enormous looking glass. And nothing else. 

The shocking view before him began to give way to a knowledge that had been blocked from his consciousness for a few excruciatingly long moments: the realization that, besides this not being P2R-361, Amdhar-bahar, he was also ... alone, completely, desolately, frighteningly alone. 

Reality began to creep back into Daniel’s awareness, and he looked down at the water surrounding him. More greenish than blue, clean, although he couldn’t see down to the bottom. He looked out at the horizon; so strange, no tree line, no mountains - just flatness, darker water blending into the eventual sky. This water was so still, barely a ripple. _‘Obviously no one puts a Stargate in the middle of a lake, so it must’ve been flooded at some point in time. Some catastrophe... there must be a DHD somewhere.’_

Daniel headed out towards the most likely location of a DHD, realizing that, as on many other worlds, the Stargate here was on a raised platform. Tucking his jacket into his hopefully waterproof pack, he dropped the whole thing at the foot of the Stargate, into two feet of water. No other way to keep it dry now, anyway. As he waded the few steps downwards, the water soon reached his shoulders. Pushing forward, Daniel wondered if the DHD would even be useable - or would he get electrocuted, trying to dial up under water? He’d have to take the chance.

But there seemed to be no DHD, nothing that he could feel, anyway. He dived under the water, he could see for a limited distance, the water wasn’t all that deep. The bottom was sandy, many very tiny pebbles, some larger broken stones, but otherwise fairly flat. No sign of a DHD or there ever having been one. Perhaps, if this flood was from an ancient glacier melt, a moving ice mass might’ve pushed it well into the distance...? Or maybe it had simply been removed. Daniel surfaced, not knowing what to make of this, but knowing one thing - he wasn’t going home any time soon.

\-------------------- 

****

Day 1, 1700 hours

"Nothing yet, sir." Sam knew the unspoken question on the Colonel’s lips as he stood leaning in the doorway. The same question he’d asked every other time he’d stopped by the control room. They still had no clue as to why the wormhole had shut down at only one end, or what could have possibly happened to Daniel. There had been no power fluctuation, nothing to cause the wormhole to skip to another gate, as had happened before. They simply had nothing to work with.

The search on planets between Earth and P2R -361 was continuing, however, but so far each search team had come back alone. 

"So... assuming Daniel is somewhere on a planet safe and sound, why doesn’t he come home? No DHD, right?"

"Right, sir. We figure he’d be waiting near the Stargate, though, so the probes’ videos should show him before we even do a search. So far, no sign of him. Now, if he were hurt, he’d also be near the Stargate... unless he was hurt too close to the event horizon when we opened it..."

"Don’t go there, Carter," Jack snapped. "That’s not what happened."

"...or he was caught in the wormhole. We still don’t know if that can happen or not."

"What happened, Major, is that Daniel’s on some planet we just haven’t checked yet, without a DHD."

"Let’s hope it’s a planet that still supports life, sir." Sam didn’t meet Jack’s eyes. She didn’t want to consider all the options any more than he did, but she was a scientist, she needed to look at every possibility in order to complete her analysis adequately. She couldn’t leave any theory unapproached. 

She would worry about the implications later.

\--------------------

Daniel gazed forlornly at the open space around him. For once, he had no options. He felt utterly helpless, not a glimmer of an idea to help him figure out what to do next. Even with all his other missions, other planets he had visited and survived and been stranded on, he had never felt so hopelessly lost. 

There was no dry land to head for, nowhere to get out of this wetness. He had considered piling up large rocks and making a platform above water, but could find nothing more than tiny pebbles and what looked to be short petrified tree stumps, firmly rooted in the ground. The only substance above water level was the Stargate itself.

Well, he could stand in the water for the rest of his life, or he could... get up there, and think this through a little more clear-headedly. Daniel knew he still was unable to logically assess his situation, panic seeping through his being every time he looked at his surroundings. Which was always. 

He removed some rope from his soggy pack, and threw an end over the top of the Stargate. Making a slip knot and pulling it tight, the rope hugged the top of the gate while leaving a long hanging end free. With his dripping pack on his back, Daniel climbed up and straddled the top of the large device.

What he would do, for now, was all that he could think of... wait for an SG team to find him.

\-------------------- 

****

Day 2, 0500 hours

While Jack and Teal’c had gone out the previous day with some of the search teams, for the most part there was nothing to do but sit and wait, wait for the other teams to return. Jack hated playing the waiting game, especially when it came to one of his team members. Waiting in the infirmary was hard enough, but at least then the information he needed was close at hand, and he always knew what was going on. But when someone went missing - like Daniel, three, four times now - there was always the possibility that that person might never return again. They had been lucky, with the crystal skull. It was Daniel who had found **himself** , really, and could have ended up being stuck in invisible limbo for eternity. _Just how long would an invisible person live, anyway?_ His alternate reality, he lucked out there, too. If they hadn’t gotten that wormhole open at the last minute... or if Daniel had needed that remote to get back to this reality... Jack shuddered at the close calls. Not to mention when Daniel didn’t come back because they thought he was dead...

And every time, Jack swore it would never happen again, he couldn’t go through that again. Why couldn’t this CO just learn his lesson, always go through that gate beside **all** his teammates... he would at least have been with Daniel, wherever he was. It disturbed him to think of his friend out there, alone. Why would he have ever thought something could go wrong between their own gateroom and the exiting planet? It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t have known. But still...

"I’m sorry sir, I thought I’d find you here. We still have no plausible answers, Colonel. All we can do is continue searching." Sam interrupted Jack’s thoughts, sitting there in Daniel’s office, gazing at nothing in particular.

"Sam, I keep thinking... what if this is where his luck runs out?" Jack’s confident demeanor seemed to have vanished, replaced momentarily by an uncertainty, a need for reassurance, that Sam had rarely seen in him before. 

Carter sat down beside Jack. "We can’t think like that, sir. Not yet."

"Why not? You do it all the time."

Sam looked at Jack and smiled. "Because I know you have enough optimism to get us both back on our feet, sir. You can’t let me down now."

"Okay, I won’t. We’ll find him."

"Yes, sir. We’ll find him."

\--------------------

The sun had set early, the daylight had been short but the night seemed interminable, and it was getting quite cool now. Daniel’s clothes were still slightly damp, his boots soggy and uncomfortable, and he’d taken them off. And speaking of uncomfortable, the ‘gate crest left much to be desired in the way of a plush seating arrangement. So many times had he shifted his body that Daniel was sure muscles had been used that had never even been tried in his lifetime. Exhaustion was beginning to claim both his physical body and his emotional state, and food would soon be a problem ... or lack of it. He had only a couple of water bottles (not that lack of water would be his greatest worry) and about 6 chocolate bars...well, 5 now. They really had been counting on that good home cooking of the Amdhar-bahar residents... and Sam had been carrying all the other edible necessities. The only other contents of his pack were some first aid supplies, rope (at least that had come in handy), a semi-moist sleeping bag, which he hadn’t been able to figure out how to use while balancing on a gatetop, gun (maybe he could shoot some fish?), and a couple of video cameras. One which could at least catch all of this in 3D! Daniel almost grinned at the irony of his situation.

He attempted to lie forward, hanging his legs over the edges and then slowly draping his ankles up and over the top of the gate. That was worse than before, no way could he lie down. Even if he somehow managed to find a way to sleep, a splash into the water would undoubtedly hurt - the water down below was just over a couple of feet deep. It was hard enough keeping his balance just sitting.

Daniel knew he couldn’t stay perched on this ledge much longer. Another attempted search for the DHD had turned up nothing. He knew the SG teams would be looking for him, taking his lead from the Antarctica search, although he couldn’t figure out why or how the wormhole could have sent him here; as far as he could tell there had been no power surge like last time. Or like the times they had manufactured one themselves, to block out the effects of the black hole and to retrieve Madrona’s touchstone. Something else had to have happened... and he was counting on Sam to figure out what it was.

He desperately hoped he wouldn’t have much longer to wait. 

\--------------------

****

Day 2, 1400 hours

"I’m sorry. I can’t figure out what happened." Sam kicked her chair in frustration, knowing it was not her nature to give up, knowing she would NEVER give up on Daniel, but knowing also that she had absolutely nowhere else to turn and was completely out of options. 

"I don’t know enough about gate travel and wormhole physics to find a solution here, General,...Colonel. I’m sorry." She was close to tears, as she had been another time, in a similar situation... memories haunted her of an injured Jack, counting on her to get him out of a frozen ice cave, to get them both home before they froze to death, and so desperately she had tried, in vain. 

"Would there not have to be a second gate, then, on P2R 361?" asked Teal’c, who had been having much the same thoughts as Major Carter, having been previously on the searching end of the Antarctica mishap.

"That would be the same as the wormhole jumping to another planet in midstream, Teal’c, and there was absolutely no evidence of a power surge. I’ve gone over that possibility, again and again," Carter explained, exasperation in her voice. She didn’t mean to let her emotions flow so obviously, and would never intentionally take her frustrations out on Teal’c; these were her own frustrations, she couldn’t believe how little use she’d been through all of this, how little she’d been able to contribute. Sam was unhappily coming to the conclusion that when the wormhole had shut down, Daniel had simply been trapped within it, somewhat like the horrendous effects of being caught in an incoming vortex. 

Daniel was counting on her... she couldn’t, she WOULDN’T let him down! Yet there was nothing else she could do to help him.

\--------------------

The moons were full, all three of them, casting glows and shadows on the surface of the still, black water. This might have been beautiful, had Daniel not felt so scared. If he’d had someone to share it with, and a way to get home afterwards. But now, it was just plain eerie.

The childhood game came to mind, ‘ _what would you do if you were the last person on Earth?’_ How about, the last person on a water-covered Earth? Or any planet, for that matter. He couldn’t remember ever having been so terrified, except maybe when he’d discovered Sha’re had been abducted, but then at least he’d been able to persuade himself to have hope. Even when the skull had left him in a different phase, and no one could see him right in his own backyard, the feeling had been more of frustration than of fear, at first, anyway. He’d been able to observe, back then, his colleagues working at locating him. And when he’d been held prisoner by that ancient lonely sea creature, Nem, he’d at least had someone to talk to. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one.

Daniel had made it halfway through the night and could take it no longer. He had to get off this thing. Leaving his footwear, t-shirt, and fatigues draped over the top of the ‘gate, Daniel slid down the rope a little too quickly, and, soothing his hands in the mildly cool water, he stretched his aching legs. He couldn’t stay awake forever; he desperately needed sleep, needed to rest his body against something, anything, and let his muscles relax. 

He lowered his body slowly into the cool water and leaned against the base of the Stargate. As the movement caused the water to ripple gently below his shoulders, Daniel closed his eyes and forced his tension to dissipate. Sleep came, a few minutes at a time, but as the growing chill of the night air mingled with colder water and fatigue, Daniel began to worry more about eventual hypothermia than sleep, and finally climbed the rope once more to dry out atop the great circle.

\--------------------

****

Day 3, 0900 hours

The second night had felt even longer than the first. Sam had lain awake staring at the darkened ceiling above her cot for most of it, knowing that being ordered to get a few hours sleep didn’t mean she’d actually be able to, even knowing that a few night teams were still out there working on search and rescue.

She still could not imagine how this had happened, or where Daniel could possibly be... or what he was going through at that very moment ... somewhere… hopefully still alive.

She hated to think of Daniel out there, alone, thousands of light years away, on some possibly hostile world. Even in Antarctica, no matter how horrible that had been, she’d at least had Jack to hash things out with. She couldn’t imagine having been there without him. She could only hope that Daniel was enjoying himself on a planet with friendly, hospitable natives... and not Goa’ulds. 

The implications were severe. The thought kept lingering in her mind that if this could happen on a routine mission, with a normally functioning wormhole, then it could happen again, and again, at any time. She HAD to figure out what had caused this, or they could all be in danger each time they stepped through the Stargate.

Now, at 0900 hours, the team sat around the long table in the briefing room, joined by Lieutenant Madison, of SG8. They suspected another mission was up and coming. 

General Hammond began. "SG1, there is nothing more you can do here for Dr. Jackson, so I’m putting you back in the field. I want you to go..."

"General, with all due respect sir, I need to be here," Jack cut the General off in mid-sentence, getting his personal request in before the anticipated official order came that would place him off-world. "Let me at least join the other search teams..."

"No, Colonel. I need the SGC back to some semblance of normalcy, and SG1 is our best team." He saw the confrontation looming in the other man’s eyes, but didn’t allow him to continue. "Trust the other teams, Colonel. If Dr. Jackson is out there to be found, they WILL find him." 

"Sir, I just feel..." 

"I know how you feel, Jack. How the rest of your team feels. You’re missing a man. But a lot of what you’re feeling is from having nothing to do here on base, son. The search will continue, but you **are** needed elsewhere from now on.

We need that mining agreement drawn up between ourselves and the inhabitants of Amdhar-bahar, let’s get that mission underway. Lt. Madison here learned Greek while working on the islands with his wife’s art history team. He’ll try to replace Dr. Jackson on this one, and see if he can feasibly communicate with the villagers. You’ll leave this afternoon at 1400 hours. You have 48 hours before I’ll be expecting you to check in or return. "

Jack was silent, staring at his clenched hands and leaning forward on the table.

"Colonel...? ...That’s your mission, Colonel. I’m not changing my decision."

"Yes, sir."

\--------------------

Daniel had alternated between sitting at the bottom of the gate to rest in the water, and on its crest to dry out, for another long day, and his patience and hope were wearing thin. His clothes could never seem to get completely dry, and he was too cold to go for long without them. 

As the second night moved in, Daniel surveyed the black horizon. He had no idea how long it would take for anyone to find him, or if they ever would. Maybe this planet wasn’t even on any of their cartouches or in the computer system at all. He had to do something. "Help me out, here, Jack," Daniel muttered. "What would you do now?"

The winds had picked up, and sheltering himself in the folds of his jacket - his only completely dry item of clothing - Daniel huddled on his perch and watched a distant electrical storm move across one of the far horizons. The night sky in that direction lit up as each dancing illumination displayed an astonishing light show. Daniel certainly didn’t want to be in the water if and when that storm hit, but even worse, he knew he couldn’t be perched on his refuge atop the Stargate.

Daniel had had many long and dreadful hours in which to review his situation, to think about everything that could and would and might happen. Reluctantly admitting that it was unlikely that his friends, or anyone for that matter, would ever be coming, Daniel made his decision. He faced the direction he assumed land had once been in - assuming the Stargate had logically faced inland - and started "walking".

\--------------------

Daniel had been wading, walking, swimming, paddling, floating, through the black inky water, illuminated by the glow of three moons, for nearly seven hours. It was hard going, and he was well past the point of exhaustion. The water had started to chill him long ago; it wasn’t terribly cold and might have been refreshing for a swim on a hot day, but the night air was cool, the wind had kept up, and hours in the water, combined with exhaustion and hunger, had a cumulative effect. He was unable to control his shivering, and his shoulders and neck muscles were tense and throbbing. He knew this was as much due to his prolonged efforts at movement as anything else, yet he could not rule out approaching hypothermia. His fatigue was gaining hold.

He had caught onto some floating debris for a while, not knowing quite what it had been made out of, but apparently hadn’t done much floating in the almost still water. There was no current to speak of, just a bit of movement now and then when the wind picked up, and not wanting to just drift, possibly in the wrong direction, he’d let go, giving up the few minutes of rest it had afforded his aching muscles. Daniel wished he could just lie down, rest for an hour... but even the protrusions under the water, which he’d realized were not tree stumps but parts of long-buried columns, were not high enough to sit on with his head above water. So he’d just kept on going... going. Knowing, believing, that eventually he would have to reach land. This water was just not deep enough to go on forever... to be a real lake or sea. And the finding of ruins deeply buried convinced him of this premise. 

But then what, once land was reached? Daniel could only hope to find something edible growing, to find people, civilization. For with the Stargate out at sea, he was not hoping to ever get back home. And he had left no sign of his presence at the Stargate, except for a dangling rope that would be vaporized by any incoming vortex.

He felt terrible, though. Sore, nauseous. Hunger had grown worse by the hour; he’d already eaten the last of the chocolate bars, figuring they wouldn’t be of any use if he was dead. His wet clothing grated on his skin, and his boots... well, they weren’t really as bad as the rest of his clothing, rubbing against him. He had tried walking without his boots for a while, but the bits of broken stone scattered heavily over the ground had been painful. And his skin felt tender, clammy. It almost hurt.

He swam for a while, having reached some quite deep stretches of water. He’d kept his backpack on, sensing he would probably need the essential items if he ever made it to land. The first aid kit; a sleeping bag, once it dried out. At first it hadn’t weighed him down all that much, and he could walk part of the time. The water level kept shifting, at times he’d be on slightly higher ground, water up to his waist. At other times he was mostly about chin deep. Hours passed... three, four? maybe more. The night was long, here, and Daniel wasn’t really keeping track of the time.

As he was absorbed in random thoughts, Daniel felt the ground give way beneath his tired feet, and he plummeted under the water. It was deep here, at least twenty feet. As he rose again above the surface, gasping for breath, once again finding it necessary to swim, Daniel realized he was using the last of his energy. He couldn’t go on much longer. He wouldn’t be able to go on. And there was still no land in sight.

Daniel swam with the last of his strength, but more and more often found himself submerging. As slow-going as plowing through the water was, the Stargate still had managed to vanish into the distance long ago, and the only way to go now was forward. But forward was way too far away. Daniel knew now he could never make it.

The ground finally rose to meet his feet, and he stumbled, submerged in the water on all fours. _‘Don’t breathe, don’t breathe...’_ . Daniel struggled to get up, but fell again. He would have to rest, have to sit ... have to sleep. He had no choice, other than to let himself drown. Daniel felt strong hands pulling him up. "C’mon, buddy. Hang in there."

"Jack?" Daniel’s hopeful eyes swung around, finding nothing but empty darkness, lit by moonlight. "Right." His face fell. He could’ve sworn...

__

"That’s it, Jack, keep me going when you’re not even here." Finding strength in his absent friends, sure that he’d never see them again but knowing they wouldn’t allow him to just give up, Daniel pushed on, walking a bit, stumbling a bit, walking again, legs heavily pulling and lifting themselves in now waist-deep water. He tripped, against one of the small infrequent columns. This was it, he could go no further. Sitting on the object, his head remained above water level this time. Daniel allowed his eyes to close.

He was awakened abruptly by the pressure of water forcing itself into his lungs, and he shot upright, coughing, choking. _"Must’ve fallen asleep...good going, Daniel"_ he told himself. _"Keep moving. Nothing left to do but move, for as long as you can. Then see what happens after that."_

So the pace continued, the molecules of renewed energy lasting only minutes. But here, the water was even shallower. If he could find a tree stump here, no, a column... to lean up against, maybe...

There **were** a few pillar remains here, rising just above water level. Daniel made his way over to the first one, and dropped down at its base. The water was still above his head. On a whim, he put his pack underneath him, and sat on it. _Almost_.

Daniel went under the water, and filled the backpack with wet sand, stuffing the empty cracks and crevices around his now soaking wet sleeping bag. Should be just high enough, this time. His skin hurt, his muscles felt like they were dying, his whole body felt like it was weighted down with lead. Or naquadah blocks, high quality. And he was cold. He sat shivering on his stuffed pack, water up to his neck, rippling now with the force of the wind, and leaned against the saviour of an ancient pillar. He had no expectations. Whatever happened, would happen. He’d have to make it to land another day. 

He didn’t even remember closing his eyes.

\--------------------

****

Day 3, 1430 hours

SG1 reached the little village in about twenty-five minutes. Daylight was just arriving here, the stars losing their twinkle in the pink sky of early morning. It had been light at 0930 when they’d arrived here last time; obviously this planet’s revolutions took longer than twenty-four hours.

The team was set upon at once by the welcoming villagers, and led into the garden courtyards between some cozy stone cabins. One of the male villagers was speaking, quite vibrantly in fact, with hand gestures and facial expressions that seemed rather ... urgent, almost. He wasn’t upset, didn’t seem agitated, just ... curious, sort of.

"You’re on, Steve," O’Neill nodded towards Lt. Madison. "See if you can figure out how to communicate with these people. I’m going to have a look around."

About 45 minutes later, an exuberant lieutenant went in search of Colonel O’Neill. "Sir, the language does seem to be similar to Greek in many ways, and I’ve been able to make out some of what they’ve been trying to tell us. They apparently saw us come through the Stargate two days ago, and then go back through straight away. They were just wondering why. They thought we’d changed our minds about visiting them and are now really happy we’ve chosen to return."

Jack eyed the villagers in a slightly incredulous manner. Few societies had welcomed them in such an open and gregarious fashion, especially after seeing them come through the open wormhole. An interesting bunch, these people were. 

"Ask them what they know about the Stargate."

There was a bit of discussion between Madison and a few of the villagers, with Madison’s facial expression indicating that he wasn’t quite getting the gist of things. Even Jack could figure out that the lieutenant was asking for things to be repeated... well... more than once, and Jack was beginning to get impatient.

"Colonel, give him time," Carter used her most persuasive voice. This was reminding her of Jack’s too-frequent impatience with Daniel. "It’s a new language for him, sir."

"Yeah, right." This was going to be a long day.

"Okay, Colonel O’Neill, sir." Madison looked relieved. "I think I have it. They use the Stargate, sir."

"What?" Sam, Jack, and Teal’c all spoke at once. "They use the Stargate??" "They have knowledge of its operation?"

__

Sly devils, some of these seemingly developing cultures. The Nox......

Madison continued. "They know only one address, sir, of a neighboring "sister" planet. They trade with these people, who may once have come from here, actually, they’re not sure. They share knowledge, and are on a definitely friendly basis with them. That’s why we’re so welcome here - they think we’re from another such culture, another planet to become partners and traders with."

"Tell them that could be arranged." O’Neill was eager to get on with the true purpose of this mission, the mining agreement, so he could get back to the base and see what was happening with the search for Daniel.

On a whim, Jack added, "Just explain that we left quickly because our other team member never made it through the ’gate with us. We went back to find him."

Madison, now growing more comfortable and confident with his new language skills, although still missing about two-thirds of whatever the villagers were actually saying, relayed both messages. He did not anticipate the sudden silence that ensued.

The villagers were silently looking at each other, passing strange... surprised... anxious... knowing? looks back and forth. It raised the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck, and even Teal’c appeared disturbed.

"What did you **say** , Steve?" queried Sam.

"I.. uh.. I... THINK I told them exactly what Jack told me to... I think..."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Madison, you probably told them we want all their women, or something."

One villager stepped forward, and began to speak quietly to the lieutenant. He spoke for several minutes, when suddenly Steve’s face turned pale.

He turned to the rest of SG1, his voice animated. "They may have an explanation for what happened to Daniel...Sir!"

"Steve?" Carter was impatient for him to go on.

"What did he say, Lieutenant?"

"There IS another Stargate here, Sir. From what I could gather, and please understand that some of this could be wrong, but the one we came through is the secondary one, the original being flooded out long before their perception of time. But what happens sir... is both ‘gates get activated together..."

"The wormhole splits? But that’s impossible," Sam was already theorizing how this could happen.

"Not exactly, Major. It’s almost simultaneous, but not quite. The gate we came through, for some reason that they don’t know, stays connected only for about two or three minutes, and the travellers of both worlds know to come through immediately. If they’re not quick enough, and this hasn’t happened in any of their lifetimes, the present gate shuts down and the wormhole automatically diverts to the original gate, which stays open for much longer."

"And Daniel Jackson left the embarkation room approximately three minutes after ourselves." Teal’c voiced all their thoughts.

"The two gates are probably too close together to operate efficiently!" Sam was getting excited. "The original has "right of way", so to speak, and when the builders connected the new one, they didn’t know how to flawlessly complete the process, or didn’t need to at the time... Sir, maybe that’s why our gates in Egypt and Antarctica were so far apart!"

"Okay, Sam, calm down. Let’s see if they can lead us to Daniel."

"O’Neill," Teal’c broke in, looking pensive. "Did they not say the original gate was flooded out?"

Sam’s face turned from lively, exuberant enthusiasm to one of horror, in a fraction of a second. If he hadn’t felt the same way, Jack might’ve made a comment about it....

His voice was quiet. "Ask them if they can take us there, Lieutenant .... Please."

The villagers were becoming activated, energized... _almost like their batteries had been turned on_... Jack felt his attention returning when Madison spoke.

"It’s several miles from here, we’ll have to walk. But once we get to the water, they have something that sounds like a boat, or a raft of some sort..."

"Sweet, let’s go." Jack was already heading off, hoping the villagers would take the hint. He had no idea which direction to follow.

\--------------------

****

Day 3, 1745 hours

They had been hiking through small outcroppings of cabins, gardens, and plots of land growing what looked like a wide assortment of vegetables. The rocks and soil seemed rich with naquadah deposits, but Sam hardly noticed. Daniel was here?? Oh, she was hoping.

Finally, the sea was in sight. It seemed to stretch way off into the distance, as far as the eye could see. As they had come closer, there had been markings, piles of rocks that supposedly pointed the way directly towards the Stargate, piles that reminded Sam of "inukshuks", direction markers of the Inuit peoples of northern Canada ... Daniel would know more about that. Ironic - were they leading the way to ..... Daniel?

The boat was there, similar to a large dugout canoe. It could hold about eight people, sitting. 

"Let’s go with four of us, just in case Daniel needs to ... lie down." Jack had no idea if his friend would be alive, or how the man could have spent nearly three days in the middle of a flooded land mass. But one thing he was sure of, Daniel would not be feeling very ... _good._

Sam, Jack, and two of the villagers headed out in the canoe, supposedly in the direction of the Stargate, although the device couldn’t be seen from such a distance. 

They had been traveling a good hour and a half, and still no Stargate in sight. Every now and then, the boat got stuck in a sandbar, and they would have to get out and release it. The water certainly wasn’t very deep, over here.

Something in the distance caught Sam’s eye. "Colonel? Over there." 

Jack followed her gaze. "Probably just a rock, Carter."

"Probably, sir, but... it looks different."

As they approached, Jack and Sam staring intently at the roundish mass poking out above water level as if to make it come into focus that much sooner, the two teammates recognized what it was at the same moment.

"Oh my god."

"Daniel!"

\--------------------

Daniel didn’t remember falling asleep.

And he never saw the glow from a very distant Stargate, a wormhole that no one disembarked from.

He saw only a mirage when he opened his eyes, several hours later, surrounded by water, cold water, numbness, aching...weak, shivering. A mirage of friends... no... the mirages in Egypt looked like small rivers in the desert, caused by the heat waves reflecting in shadows on the sand... no sand here... well, just underwater... no mirage, a vision, a hallucination...

"Daniel."

A hallucination with a voice. With sound effects. Surround sound, so real, so close. As if he were really there. 3D. 3D?... this was a really good camera....

"Daniel." The voice, more urgent. Daniel looked again, something coming into focus. Sam? Jack?

"It’s okay, Daniel. We’re here now. You’re safe."

Daniel felt his body being lifted out of the water... the water hurt, so much. "Easy now, careful." Voices again. "Come on, get him warm." He wasn’t sure what was happening, really. What was he doing here, anyway? He was being placed on his back, and then the visions and sounds faded away....

\--------------------

Daniel was mostly out of consciousness throughout the trip back, and even throughout the ride in the wheeled wagon that was pulled across the last nine miles of track by the many villagers who had come to help.

Their concerned faces showed eagerness to get their new friend back home, expecting the strangers to return as soon as they could.

Daniel didn’t awaken until he was in the infirmary, about three hours after returning with his comrades through the ‘gate. But when he did, he did recognize the faces of his three close friends, no hallucination this time.

"Hey, Daniel."

"Danny, my boy. How ya feeling?" Jack looked both relieved and concerned at the same time, if Daniel could figure out how that worked.

"Been better, Jack, " Daniel responded groggily. "But ... been worse, too. I’m dry.... Thank you.... God, thank you. How’d you find me, anyway?"

And carefully sliding aside the IV pole, three friends sat down on the edges of the infirmary bed, deep in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain, to relate a tale of what once again seemed to be Daniel’s forte; fierce determination to conquer hopelessness, to weather the battle for yet another chance at life, of guardian angels and pure luck... and friends who would always make damn sure to never give up.............

  


* * *

>   
> © May 6, 2001  
> The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp.  
> The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters  
> who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names,   
> titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television,   
> Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd.   
> Partnership.  
> This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and   
> solely meant for entertainment.   
> All other characters, the story idea and the story itself   
> are the sole property of the author.   
> 

  


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##### Thanks for the feedback, Nic. 

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